This time of year is truly busy for many of us.
Holiday preparations and family obligations aside, we are pushing to wrap up key projects before year’s end or already planning out projects for the first half of 2017 to hit the ground running. On top of the everyday work, some are even juggling all those annual tasks like budgeting, resource planning, or performance reviews.
But it’s not just this time of year anymore. It is increasingly common to be this busy all year round. To-do lists fill up quickly, ambitions grow larger, and annual processes are being transformed into a continuous part of company culture.
The challenge is that employees’ accomplishments can sometimes get lost in the fray. Take the following question, for example.
Do you remember everything you’ve accomplished over the past year?
You might do fairly well with a couple of recent projects or especially big wins, but what about when you think all the way back to January and all the work that has occurred since then. Some of the projects you and your colleagues or reports accomplished have probably already faded from memory.
The fact is a connection to these accomplishments is ultimately what can make work more human, creating a stronger, more cohesive employee experience.
Employees derive a sense of meaning and belonging through the work they do. At times, it comes through in how work contributes to a greater purpose or mission for the company. At others, it is about how people have come together to get work done, solve challenging problems, or delight a customer.
It can provide a sense of achievement and satisfaction to look back across a period of time, reflecting and re-experiencing those past successes. It may also be a way to energize and motivate employees, reinforcing performance that has occurred in the past while also charting out what might be possible in the future.
These look-backs have been largely informal in the past, but HR technologies can make them more observable and much more tangible.
Take social recognition, for example. As a part of a larger culture of appreciation, a social recognition solution collects moments throughout the year and in real-time as contributions are made and as relationships are built through those contributions. Looking back at the timeline of these moments avoids the pitfalls of relying on our own memories of a busy year while reaffirming the impact that an employee has had on others and on the business.
Integrating a timeline of recognition into continuous conversations between managers and reports, or sharing socially among peers, can be a way to build the connections employees have and help provide meaning to an otherwise busy experience.
How has your company helped to celebrate your accomplishments over the past year?
As Globoforce’s Vice President of Client Strategy and Consulting, Derek Irvine is an internationally minded management professional with over 20 years of experience helping global companies set a higher ambition for global strategic employee recognition, leading workshops, strategy meetings and industry sessions around the world. He is the co-author of "The Power of Thanks" and his articles on fostering and managing a culture of appreciation through strategic recognition have been published in Businessweek, Workspan and HR Management. Derek splits his time between Dublin and Boston. Follow Derek on Twitter at @DerekIrvine.
Comments